Commerce City

The bar was high Sunday as Phish took the stage at Dick’s Sporting Goods Park in Commerce City. The previous two monumental evenings (Friday review here, Saturday here) had the three-day Labor Day festival poised for inclusion in the short list of the Vermont band’s top runs.

On the heels of Friday’s blue-ribbon show that saw Phish spin an entire concert out of a mere 15 tunes, the four-top rallied for its second-of-three shows at Dick’s Sporting Goods Park Saturday with a relentlessly creative session that belongs in the band’s most hallowed trophy case.

Pransksters, those Phish. Last Labor Day Weekend, as the improvisational maestros first dipped into Dick's Sporting Goods Park, they slipped a sneaky score into their Commerce City debut, playing only tunes that started with the letter “S.” On their triumphant return a year later – Friday night at the soccer stadium where octogenarian ticket checkers seemed only remotely startled by the overwhelmingly buoyant crowds - the band took a more subtle approach.

Phish’s three-night run at Dick’s Sporting Goods Park in Commerce City last year was an experiment, and, because we’re talking about Colorado’s four favorite adopted sons, of course that experiment worked.

By Ricardo Baca It's an unarguable point: Music festivals are about the discovery of new bands. While Dave Matthews and his band likely sold the majority of tickets for this year's Mile High Music Festival, which came to a close Sunday at Dick's Sporting Goods Park in Commerce City, the festival's most exciting moments came via new artists.

By Ricardo Baca The 3-year-old Mile High Music Festival seems to have reached its stride. As the festival opened Saturday, everything flowed with an impressive sense of confidence and, yes, musicality.